Pirates set their sites

Fans of The West Wing who cannot wait for the new series to roll out on Channel 4 can go online to feed their need. The acclaimed US show is one of a growing number of American and British TV series available to download via the internet as the "content pirates", fresh from taking on record companies and Hollywood, eye a new target.

Unauthorised online distribution of TV programmes is on the rise, and this month the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) launched a European legal campaign to combat this latest form of TV distribution. But, as the American TV industry mobilises its defences, British broadcasters remain undecided on the level of threat posed to their businesses and how to respond.

Piracy is nothing new. But just as VHS counterfeiting gave way to unauthorised copying of CDs and DVDs, so illegal content downloading has moved centre stage. The first target was music, which could be downloaded quickly and easily. Rapidly evolving technology, however, now enables longer content - TV shows and films - to be downloaded faster than ever. An internet trawl reveals dozens of shows - from Friends spin-off Joey, which launches in the UK on Five next month, to Desperate Housewives and 24 along with Channel 4's Shameless, BBC 1's According to Bex and Five's Fifth Gear - listed on sites as "available".

The problem for broadcasters is that if viewers download programmes in significant numbers they may do so instead of watching the same shows on broadcast channels, so potentially undermining the advertiser-funded business model on which most of today's commercial TV channels are built. Meanwhile, advance viewing of imported TV programmes ahead of their official UK TV broadcast reduces the value of the rights British broadcasters pay for hit shows.

Last November Peter Chernin, chief operating officer of Fox in the US, spoke out against "digital thievery" and the threat posed to broadcasters by illegal file-sharing of TV shows. Many British TV companies seem less anxious. An ITV spokesperson observes: "As we've little acquired programming we just don't see this as a significant problem." Channel 4 says it is "monitoring" the situation. Five, meanwhile, was unaware of Joey's availability online to British downloaders and is "a bit sketchy" on BitTorrent. But Five's head of legal compliance, Paul Chinnery, says while it does not see piracy as a huge problem it is committed to legally challenging anyone making money out of illicitly exploiting copyright content. "We need to think about a strategy for this now," Chinnery says. "If people steal, which effectively piracy is, it drains money out of the creative industry and undermines broadcasters' willingness to pay for new creative work. It's a form of theft that can only have an adverse impact on the TV industry."

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